


Short Measures

by BibliophileOfLancaster



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:08:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23404276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BibliophileOfLancaster/pseuds/BibliophileOfLancaster
Summary: He doesn't bother with waiting long enough to recognize who is on the other side, instead opting for tugging the wooden latch from its cradle and throwing wide the pitted door. Admittedly, it takes him longer than it should to recognize the shape silhouetted under a cloak, but he sighs in relief anyway when he recognizes the lopsided tilt of shoulders against the moonlight: left higher than right."Hells and heavens," he murmured.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 3
Kudos: 44





	1. hear not the secrets we keep

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fanfic in years, but here: hopefully some of you enjoy this quick attempt at getting back on the bike.

It's 3:17 in the morning when someone starts pounding on the door.

Geralt knows the exact time; it's damn near burned into his head from the watch he borrowed. The brass hands flash behind his eyelids through each blink as he snaps his book shut and glances towards the door. It couldn't be a sorcerer—any sorcerer who looked for him wouldn't think of here or hesitate long enough to knock—and, if someone were on his trail, the pitted wood would be shattered, or, he supposed, stained crimson. Humans wouldn't be about this early—he didn't smell smoke, and there wasn't the scream of crisis—and he could practically hear the hell that would break loose in the hallway if the person didn't stop knocking.

In all honesty, he should have gone further. The near-miss was still raw in the back of his mind. Roche’s slew of idiots could follow a trail, at least, and Geralt hadn't made it more than ten miles before his hands had started shaking and his trust in his senses had diminished completely. What was left of the oil was spent on burning the stolen cart on the side of the road with minuscule artifacts in it—a fob from Novigrad that ticked quietly enough he almost forgot it counted down his seconds and a notebook that held scribbles he thought about enough times they were sharper than the pen could recreate them—his clothes were dropped off at a house that vaguely reminded him of a place that, when remembered, evoked a similar feeling to a home. Consequently, the house also yielded a decent change of clothing, albeit not his preferred attire, and, when he wandered to the inn towards the crossroads, the innkeeper hadn't questioned his acquisition of a small room, even when he overpaid by nearly fifty florens.

Even after paying, Geralt stowed himself away in the barn behind the inn. Inconspicuous, he supposed, and a chance to leave quietly if anything followed him. Better: a place away from eyes, prying or not, a chance to breathe in the dry must of straw and wood rot.

Instead of listening to any of the warnings pounding beneath his ribs, he crosses the six paces it takes to reach the door in a series of stumbling, shuffling strides and hopes to holy hell whoever is waking up his neighbors isn't out for his blood.

He doesn't bother with waiting long enough to recognize who is on the other side, instead opting for tugging the wooden latch from its cradle and throwing wide the pitted door. Admittedly, it takes him longer than it should to recognize the shape silhouetted under a cloak, but he sighs in relief anyway when he recognizes the lopsided tilt of shoulders against the moonlight: left higher than right.

"Hells and heavens," he murmured.

Yennefer’s body casts a long shadow into the barn.

She looks uncomfortable, cagey, hands shoved into the pockets of her cloak and not quite shuffling from foot to foot. She attempts to offer a smile, but it manifests like a nervous tic of her cheek. The harsh light emphasized the hollowness of her cheeks, the starkness of the shadows beneath her eyes, and the exuberance harbored within them. For a brief moment, he is startled by the moment, the strangeness of seeing her touched by the world. This moment passes between his teeth on an exhale. He himself can't be much better with the only light behind him being the flickering of a dim lamp low on oil.

She doesn't say anything, predictably.

So Geralt does. "Where did the wind take you this time?" he offers, the question rhetorical, a greeting more than anything else. It's been about two years since he's seen Yennefer, but he learned years ago not to bother worrying—or looking for her—when she drops off the map.

When her lips only tighten, he turns, shuffling back into the blessed near-darkness of the barn, hears Yen catch the door before it can swing shut. The light scratch of her boots breaks the silence.

"Heard a king had problems," Yen says, and Geralt’s exhausted, but he manages his knife-edge smile. Yen can act like she doesn't care all she wants, but she's never been able to not keep tabs on him.

"Good take, no injuries." Geralt leans against the soft, wet wood of the wall. "Well, Jaskier sprained his ankle, but that happened after we left.” Which, to be fair, if there were ever a good time to sprain your ankle, Jaskier had found it.

"But, you know," he says, gesturing vaguely.

"How it is," Yen supplies, expression softer now. "I do."

"Jaskier’s on his way to Skellige."

"You stayed behind to…?"

"Wrap up." He glances to the door again, then to the open book on the wall of the horse stall.

"Wrap up—"

"Permanently." Geralt meets her stare. "You would have been a beneficial addition," he continues, throat tight.

"You could have brought Triss," Yen points out, never to be guilt-tripped—never to be manipulated, and that's why she's good at what she does, why Geralt has never been able to take the animal at the center of Yen, the wild, headstrong thing within her, and grab hold and control it, not for any sweet-talking or bribes or threats in the world.

"She had more important matters to attend to."

Yen shakes her head, curls waving, and breathes a chuckle. Geralt swallows. "It took a while to find you." She gestures to the room at large. "This is very…"

"Very," Geralt echoes.

"Different. For you."

"Hm.” He has enough money for an inn, but even that luxury is exhausting. Sometimes a place off the crossroads where you have to check for rats is comforting.  
(Sometimes it reminds you of years ago, when you were less worn-in, consulting a woman whose accent hasn't bled out, whose eyes are the same shade of violet as nightshade, who hasn't sated her curiosity about you but wants to, asks to, needs to.)

Yennefer stands off to the side in a way that could be considered awkward if it'd been anybody else. Geralt glances at her form, at the static condition of her. "New cloak," he admonishes, and it coaxes a laugh from Yen, who rolls her eyes, shrugs out of the cloak, and joins Geralt on top of the small bed he has made in the corner of the barn.

It's smaller than they're used to; then again, whenever these occurrences manifest, Geralt has taken the floor. Yen’s body heat radiates out from where she's propped up against the barn’s wall, left leg pressed up against Geralt’s right, silk stockings against dusty linen. She smells like she always does: gooseberries and lilacs. Only now, with her next to him, can he find the nuance of clay and rain.

And she's stiff like she tends to be, like she has to take some time to remember how to stop being the person she becomes when she leaves like she needs to familiarize herself to this life, to work passed the block in her throat and file down the rough edges of herself to fit back snug in this broken jigsaw of existing.  
"Ellander," she offers finally.

Geralt thinks about that. It's farther than he thought Yen had gone. "For?"

"Loose ends. Clear my head."

Meaning Yennefer had business to take care of and then took some time to play lone wolf, to take refuge in long days of silence, spending nights in beds with nothing in common with this one. She's never been gone for ten years before, but, to be fair, the last time she'd done this, he hadn’t been certain he would see her again.

Geralt doesn't understand the appeal of isolation, but he knows Yennefer needs it sometimes, like how Ciri needs it, like how Jaskier can't stand it. It's quiet for a moment, the easy, familiar silence starts to lull Geralt to remembrance, but Yennefer shifts over and leans down and kisses his cheek before he loses himself. He relaxes the way he does only at the end of a decent night when his gaze has skipped heads on instinct when his quarry is in his hands or on the floor.

Last time, it wasn't like this. Last time, Yen showed up and everything was off, tension crackled, twisted, jittered up his spine in a terrible way. Geralt doesn't remember who threw the first punch, but he remembers the moment of shift, of something sparking in Yen’s eyes and Geralt stepping towards her while she slid down the wall of his temporary residence, tears sliding down her cheeks and sobs tearing her throat, the door still open to the cracked stone foundation of an alleyway.

Sometimes that's what it takes for things to go back to normal.

Yennefer leaves and Yennefer returns and they yell or cry or both, or fuck without words between them, or feign platonic stability in some dodgy barn on the outskirts of a town Geralt wouldn’t be able to recall in the morning light.

What they don't do is talk about it. And that's good. That's easy. Uncomplicated. He'd rather act like they’d had this arrangement for the entirety of their lives, that this was a mutual understanding of complacency than take his jumbled mess of thoughts and try to hammer them out into something coherent.

When she leans back, Yennefer has her hand on Geralt’s arm, the blank pale of her fingers in stark contrast to his sun-darkened skin. She pauses, her fingers tense lightly, rise to brush close to his eyes.

"You've put up with the stress remarkably."

"Adequately," he corrects. "Time still passes when you aren't here, Yen." It's the wrong thing to say, Geralt knows, even before the syllables cut off his tongue. The subsequent stretching beats of silence confirm it. He's great at keeping Yen’s eyes off his cards, but hells if he doesn't show his hand at the worst moment every time. Eventually, he looks away from the blank wall, towards her.

Yen regards him carefully. "You missed me?" she asks, and it'd be the perfect mix of humor and nonchalance if it weren't for the caution in her eyes, in the way her fingers press into the small wrinkles formed around his eyes.

There's nothing Geralt can say to that question without opening up one point of contention or another, so he closes his eyes. _Of course, I did, Yen. I wouldn't be here if I didn't care about you, let alone if you were still alive._

The words were simple enough; the implications were not.

And soon Yennefer is talking again, breath quick and light, babbling about how crooked the streets are or how she met a man who pronounced her name wrong, called her beautiful, and she made sure he knew she was more than that much, while Geralt listens quietly as a subtle reminder— _you're back, you're here, you're somewhat safe, don't stray for so long._

It's just past a muted, rain-blotted sunrise when Yennefer’s words run out, sunlight streaming in through the thin curtains and prodding Geralt slowly into reluctant awareness. The weight dipping the straw bed beside him is an anchor, which is a reason to sit up and press the heels of his hands against his eyes. A storm patters against the barn’s roof. The air hangs heavy and close between them.

Sometime during the night, Yen changed into a shirt two sizes too large for her. She's awake, the trashy romance novel Geralt picked up a couple of days ago open in her lap next to his journal. She hasn't slept—Geralt would bet anything on that—and won't, probably, until they're back at Vengerberg that night, the familiar lull and power giving her enough security to keep her eyes shut. He's sure he'll find her curled up in a bathtub tomorrow morning, a childhood habit she hasn't broken.

(Geralt was able to admit a long time ago that nothing feels like home quite like any place where Yennefer, Ciri, and he are together. It's going to take Yennefer a while to get to that point, he thinks, even if Yennefer keeps tabs on him when she's four thousand miles away.)

Geralt leans against her lightly. "How long?" How long will you be gone this time? How long will it take you to remember you despise stability? How long until I'm not enough to drag you back? How long until we can act like you're happy to be back?

Yennefer hums quietly. "After you take a bath?" Yen prompts, closing the book and raising an eyebrow at him.

"—she says, unaware that she's a hypocrite."

Yennefer smacks him with the paperback, but she's grinning her half-smile, and Geralt convinces himself that's a victory. "To think you're supposed to be a gentleman."

"And you were supposed to be the charming, delicate flower."

"Well, neither of us quite lived up to expectations, did we?"

"Expectations are investments in disappointment, Yen," Geralt allows, stretching forward and pulling his shoulder across his chest as he walks tugs on his boots. He's not even quite sure where she’s thinking of bathing, but he can't find it in himself to care.

"No," says Yen, "to wish is to hope, and to hope is to expect," and then she laughs, chuckles when Geralt sends an astounded glance her way. "You're not the only one fond of classics."  
Geralt lets the sound of the water against stone devolve into white noise. A cattle trough, filled through the night, ripples in the storm. Secluded behind a blanket of bushes and the broadside of the stable, Geralt strips out of the few clothes he kept during the night.

"We could skip breakfast," comes Yen’s voice, muted through the thick air and the sound of the rain, but Geralt can hear the cautious exhaustion in her voice. "We could just go straight—"

And Geralt sinks into the water, hair matted down flat to his head and invoking that minute panic of breathless existence in his chest. He thinks about Vengerberg, about the fork in the road, about the blooms, and about the two sets of eager eyes waiting for them to walk through the front door.

Once the water runs clean and his dull headache dissipates, he climbs out and dresses quickly. He looks for her, again, even though he can smell her from where he’s stood.

She's leaning back against the barn’s wall in an old wooden chair abandoned here, precariously tilting towards the floor. Her hair is falling in tussled curls—he can't deny his fingers itch to brush through them—and her eyes are closed, her slightly uneven lips open slightly. "It's all a bit tragic, isn't it?" He blinks, bites his cheek. "I could live a hundred lifetimes in a hundred different worlds, in any version of reality, and I'd still end up here."

"As opposed to a life of bravery and sacrifice?" _As opposed to a normal life where we could deal with intimacy without wanting to run? As opposed to a life where storms were simply storms and magic was a chance to give freedom, not a curse?_

"As opposed to a life of choosing paint colors and names." She sighs. Then, the chair crashes to its natural position, she stands, meets his eyes in a sudden act of forced happiness. "We could skip breakfast," she repeats. He nods.

"We could," he says, eventually, once he's somewhat sure in the line of her mouth, in the form of her hands. Dimly, he notices her boots are half-tied on her feet; her cheeks are stained with blush. He notices she's lost the stiffness; the set of her shoulders is relaxed, comfortable, trusting. She fixes his collar with nimble fingers; the smell of gooseberries makes his head spin again, but he buries the notion. "Let's go home."


	2. hold not the wolf by the ears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured I might as well post the second chapter. I'm still figuring out the "rules" of this universe, so please be patient. Most of what I'll be posting is in the "character sketch" realm of things.

The ticking is causing Geralt to careen towards a breakdown.

There's an itch in the back of his head, an irk, that the insistent pendulum hardly aids with. Ciri wouldn’t notice its absence. In fact, the only soul who would care is the cause behind the rushing of water beside him and the fact he's currently homing himself in the bathroom next to his catatonic lover instead of in his bed.

Given, he should have realized what would have happened. How she would have reacted, how old habits would return. He's seen it enough times in Ciri—from the tantrums to the yelling—to know when these fits come about. Disappearing for months after that god-awful day in Novigrad wasn't in either of their itineraries, despite what the silence beside him suggested.

Instead of realizing, of course, he had planted his feet in the dirt outside of Vengerberg while his heart beat steady and strong against his ribs. Instead of consoling, he had quelled the want to hold her.

Which is how he finds himself here, leaning his head against the wall, locking himself in a bathroom with a newly mute Yennefer in a town he barely knows.

The bathroom hasn't changed since he last saw it. The window is still sending fragmented prisms of light across the floor from where Ciri had thrown a rock. The washbasin is still a relic of when the previous owner had wandered the halls in his insomnia-induced haze, chipped and stained. The tiles are still the same worn color of bone, but the grout has darkened tremendously around the hexagonal tiles since they were first laid. The cabinets in front of him had been adorned with deep gauges and crooked hinges, still are. Although, sometime during her time here, Yennefer has spent a night unscrewing them and later setting them ablaze, confident the house seemed less claustrophobic without them.

The door behind him, in particular, could easily be unlocked, if Yennefer had the inclination to test Geralt’s lazy attempt at magic. The water is running in the sink, yes, but Yennefer is fully clothed in her cloak with new buttons on the pockets. He can't imagine her with her hair up; she's already cramped for space in that basin without the discomfort of arching her neck to keep the hair tie from digging into her skull. If he had to conjure an image of her now, it would be her with loose curls and the never-changing image of control.

He hasn't had the courage to look at her yet, knowing he'd find violet eyes staring back at him. He’s felt the weight of that stare for the last hour.

The clock in the hallway chimes. Come to think of it, bashing that clock in would leave more damage on his person than he needs to deal with. The idea causes his fingers to itch.

Geralt’s head falls against his knees. He covers his ears, sighs. His cheek twitches; his jaw tightens. He inhales slowly and runs the tips of his fingers through his hair. He raises his head, leans it against the hard tile of the wall. His hands fall from his hair. His tongue weighs heavy, checks the back of his teeth. His eyes close.

Then, he speaks.

He talks about the time Ciri chased after him and ended up knee-deep in mud. The groundwater was high that year and neither of them knew the patch Ciri had tripped onto was as saturated as it was. Her voice was shrill with fear; Yennefer’s name was uttered before she yelled for Geralt. When Geralt had managed to lever her out of the mud, they had walked back to the house, Ciri barefoot in Geralt’s arms. Yennefer had found Ciri on the table by the basin, Geralt scrubbing furiously at the muddy footprints on the floorboards. She had ruffled his hair and bandaged Ciri’s skinned knees.

(He omits the fact he heard Yennefer crying that night, alone in her room, when Ciri was curled up next to him in her bedroom across the hall.)

He talks about when Yennefer became a hobby baker, about when she nearly lit the kitchen aflame after Ciri had asked for bread like the kind she had eaten in Cintra. When Yennefer had thrown the door open with such force the walls rattled and a dark smudge of her fist accompanied the peeling paint.

(He doesn't mention that smudge of soot is probably still on these decaying walls.)

He talks about the weeks they had spent together pouring over research when they could. She hated the language, didn't understand why the letters looked like others, why the text was so long-winded. He hated the weather, how it rained every single day, poured against the windows as though hammering home the fact they couldn't leave. Upon finding the answer, she had stood so quickly the heavy chair fell, the dust had vibrated, and, before Geralt could brace himself, she had her arms around his neck, a kiss on his cheek, a rarely-heard giggle on her lips.

(He swallows the fact that was the last time besides that night in the barn that she'd been so engrossed in happiness she'd forgotten the set boundaries.)

He doesn't talk about when there was a fire in the field, not a mile from here. He doesn't talk about the ash in his mouth or the fact when he blinks he sees flames licking the sky or the idea that every breath he takes causes hysteria to jump in his chest. He doesn't talk about the clarity, about the darkness, about the tightness in his chest as his lungs gasped for air, as his eyes stung and his mind faltered.

When the form in the bathtub doesn't respond, he changes tactics. His words run the gauntlet of the classics he knew as a child. The words are familiar, a ghost from when Ciri was still afraid of storms, still small enough to come running to his bed in the middle of the night. Syllables his gruff palate hadn't considered tangible, phrases he hadn’t understood until a child was pressed by his side, start clipping off his tongue. The silence presses heavily against his ears. The clock tolls. The water rushes unbearably close to him.

"What adventures did you find while you were away?"

For a moment, his mouth can't form words. The thoughts come in rushes, in thinly spread lies. "I found my ghosts," he manages.

A low hum comes from the tub. "For years?"

"I have a way of collecting them." He can almost hear her nod. "This damned war hasn't helped my standings of course." _Neither has dying,_ he hears in the shell of his ear. A lull forms in the conversation.

She doesn't speak for what feels like an eternity. Geralt’s eyelids start to close for longer than a blink; the ache in the back of his head dulls. Before she speaks, she laughs quietly; the sound bounces off the walls pleasantly.

"Geralt, you're _dead_."

His shoulders flinch. His lips twitch in a jittery smile. "I suppose I am."

A hollow, rough chuckle escapes the tub and turns into a sob; Geralt’s eyes glance to where the moonlight touches the familiar chip in the porcelain. "I saw your body, Geralt. I mourned you."

The silence descends again like a broken bird. He can't work passed the cork in his throat, passed the clumsy words he'll offer, and he doesn't until she speaks again. "I was prepared for Ciri to grow up. I was prepared for the battle. I expected the looks." A muffled curse bubbles. "But the _memories_ , Geralt…" She takes a breath, sighs brokenly. "Do you remember the barn?"

His eyelids tighten. "How could I forget, Yen?" The memories are hazy at best, but Geralt remembers straw in his nose, stolen clothes on his body, and the hair that should have been loose.

"I think about it every day." He manages a small frown. "We're…there's no way we're going to fix this, is there?"

"Not now." His voice is lower now.

He swallows. "Time," he forces, "is the undoing of everything we've done to ourselves." He pauses, exhales, rubs his stubbled jaw. "These last few months have taught me that much, at least."

* * *

During the night, he decides to join Yennefer, after the silence became crushing.

Curled up against her isn't as cramped as it could be. His chin rests on her head, her forehead rests against his chest, where his heart beats slowly. The comfort is oddly sentimental.

"'You know, you're a little complicated after all.'" He bares his teeth in a smile. Oh, yes, a Redanian novel.

"'Oh, no,'" he quotes hastily, clumsily. "'No, I'm not really. I'm a whole lot of different simple people.'" She smiles into the silence. He can't help finding the feeling empty.

(The last time she quoted classics, she sobbed tears into his jacket, ruined his shirt, and smudged her mascara.)

"You died," she repeats, then, as if it makes this situation any more real. "Did you think about Ciri?" Geralt hears the implied question. _Did you think about me?_

"Every day," he affirms. _Every hour, every minute, carved into my bones. How could I ever forget? How could I forget you?_

She nods once, presses against his chest. He was wrong about her hair after all; the set was lower than normal, droopier. Her boots laid clumsily on his pants. "How long do you think we have, before?"

"Before?" He prompts hesitantly.

"Before," she offers quietly. It doesn't take much time, even in Geralt’s sleep-addled brain, to connect the dots.

"A few months, at the least." His estimate hits his heart heavily, even as he utters it.

She's mute for a moment, two. "Will you answer the call, when it comes?"

"This is our war."

"No, it's not," she insists, her voice bouncing off the walls. "It's a proxy war."

"And for the sake of the Witchers?" She stills. "Execution or suicide, Yen?"

"Suicide," she answers confidently.

"This is certainly that much." He closes his eyes. "If sorcerers can't stop Nilfgaard, how can soldiers, even if it is the majority of them?"

Her cheeks twitch.

The silence roars like waves. Yennefer lays her head against his chest again. His consciousness wavers.

* * *

Geralt awakes to dim light and Yennefer’s fingers curling into his shirt, against his skin, as if he'll disappear during the night. He's positive she hasn't slept. He's also sure his legs are going to complain about the prolonged position when he stands, but he can't find the energy to care.

Her fingernails are painted, for once. They gleam dark in the morning light, in the chill of dawn. Her dark crown is bowed beneath his, still, her breath warm against him. Her knife digs into his hip. Her hair constricts his breathing. This moment doesn't have finesse. It doesn't have grace. It is real, though, and Geralt can feel the tenseness in his heart begin to thaw.

"Remember me like this, please," she murmurs.

"'You'll always be like this to me.'" He blinks, closes his eyes.

There's a faint rustle of fabric. She'll be gone soon, disappeared to wherever the hell she wants to go, to courts and caves, to cramped streets and broad wilderness, wherever she feels like the world can't crush her. For a moment, though, for an exhale and a sigh, he believes she'll be there when he wakes.

It hurts worse than dying in a perverse way.

* * *

When he opens his eyes again, the sun is higher. The body next to him has disappeared. The window above the bathtub has been opened. For a brief, paralyzing moment, he swears she's run off again; he sits up quickly enough his back cracks terribly and he bangs his kneecap on the porcelain, which is followed by a rough, loud curse.

Then he sees her sitting on the chair that was left in here whenever the lights had been taken out. Sometime during the night she's fixed her makeup—a quick glance tells him where the eyeliner had ended up, smudged on his shirt—and has fixed her hair into its effortless curls, where it bounced gently with each step. Her lips spread in her ever-present light smile, as though a pure-hearted laugh will escape her at any moment.

His hands curl on the porcelain edge; the chip digs into his palm. Dim sunlight dances across the back of his hand. "Sleeping in bathtubs, Geralt?" Her voice takes on her original drawl, heavy and resounding memories.

Her cloak has been readjusted, retied. She flashes her teeth, looks away. When his brow furrows, she shakes her head. "What would your mother say?"

He can't find it in himself to answer.


End file.
